Sprain
by Mrs. HopeEstheim
Summary: And for the first time, she was almost glad she'd sprained her ankle.


**It's 3 in the morning. I decided I needed a new one shot. I opened a document and I've started typing. Let's see where it takes us, yeah? Just like the good ol' days, when I pumped out a one shot a week or something like it.**

**Hope you like it!**

* * *

"I'm seriously fine, Natsu!"

The blonde celestial spirit wizard whined from her position on the pink-haired dragonslayer's back as he made the trek to the city of Magnolia. She'd been trying to get him to put her down for a good twenty minutes now, and it hadn't worked yet.

"You're not walking a single step, Lucy," he very nearly growled. Her efforts were _still_ wasted on her stubborn best friend.

"It's just a sprain, and it won't get better if I can't put weight on it!"

"You're supposed to gradually put weight on it!" he retorted, shifting his grip on her legs just slightly. "Walking ten miles from where we dealt with those bandits isn't gradual!"

"Well, I wouldn't be walking ten miles, would I?" her voice came out a little more sarcastic than she had intended. "There are just a few miles to go! I can handle that much!"

Natsu shook his head, and she could see the defiance in the way his jaw was set. Lucy rested her chin on his shoulder and sighed, knowing that she had no chance of winning this argument with her obstinate companion. She knew enough to know that he wouldn't give in any time soon, and even though she could be just as pigheaded as he was, she decided to let him have his way. She _could_ walk on her sprained ankle, yes…but it would hurt, and that's probably the reason he wouldn't let her. Besides, even if she could convince him to let her walk, she was pretty sure he'd tell her he'd only let her walk if she could get away from him.

"Aren't I too heavy?" she tried weakly one more time, though now slowly resigning herself to the imminent embarrassment she'd be the center of when the two of them reentered the guild.

"Aye!" Happy said from the ground, and when she glared at him and snapped that she wasn't talking to him, he covered his mouth and giggled.

"I think you've put on more weight," Natsu declared fairly promptly, and the blonde couldn't help but be offended slightly. She opened her mouth to retort, but the dragonslayer continued, "Muscle, I think, from all the jobs and training we've been doing lately since S-class exams are coming up soon. Even some of your clothes are getting looser around your stomach because it's turning to muscle."

"Wha—"

"But don't worry, your chest hasn't changed at all."

Lucy couldn't understand how he'd said that with such a nonchalant tone when her face was flaring up from embarrassment and indignation.

"Hey, now!" she cried, "Where do you think you've been looking?!"

She felt him shrug beneath her as he replied in a casual tone, "Just where everyone else looks."

The blonde groaned and buried her face in his scarf. This situation was getting more and more humiliating by the second. First, she'd had to get tripped up by a _tree root_, of all the horribly cliché things to fall over while in the middle of a fight, and Loke had to disengage from about four other bandits to save her from just two. One of them fell on her leg, which in turn twisted her ankle, making her make some sort of gargled exclamation that alerted her other companions to her injury, and although she still got back up and helped finish rounding up that stupid gang, both Natsu and Loke were overly protective of her. Secondly, she had somehow been forced into a piggyback ride, and _thirdly_, Natsu was making comments about her _chest_.

_Natsu_. Making comments about her _chest_.

She could only imagine the field day Mirajane would have with that. Even if Natsu said he was only looking 'where everyone else looks', the white-haired woman would have found a way to make the blonde believe that there was a hint of anger in his tone because he didn't want anyone else to look there…because that was how Mira worked. She made Lucy believe some of the most ridiculous things where love was concerned because _damn it all_ if she wasn't nineteen years old and still without a boyfriend.

Aquarius wouldn't let her live it down.

"Natsu!" Happy said, and when Lucy lifted her face from her friend's scarf she could see that the exceed was now drifting along at eye-height, backwards, so that he could face Natsu when talking to him. "You should make Lucy pay you in fish for carrying her all this way."

The fire dragonslayer laughed, praising the exceed with, "That's not a bad idea, Happy! We're gettin' fish for supper!"

"I never agreed to that!" Lucy exclaimed, her brow furrowed. Of course they'd come up with some ridiculous way for her to pay them back for something that _she hadn't wanted in the first place_. "I already told you to put me down!"

"You can walk if you can get yourself down," Natsu offered, and Lucy groaned at the actual manifestation of her prediction from a few minutes before.

If she was completely honest with herself, she didn't mind buying the fish. This job had been mostly for the sake of her rent, and even when split up between she and Natsu—including the small stipend they'd give happy—she'd still have enough to buy dinner for her ravenous partner and the blue feline. Maybe only barely…but then she'd have an excuse to go on another job with him soon.

* * *

Lucy stretched and slipped deeper into her tub. She let out a small exclamation, and then giggled as she ducked her chin into the water. It was nice and warm and it soothed the dull ache in her ankle. It was almost enough to wash away the mortification of their return to the guild—but not quite.

The blonde groaned as the memories surfaced again.

She could still recall the initial worry when Natsu kicked the doors open and loudly announced they were back.

"_Are you okay, Lu-chan?!" was the instant reaction from Levy, as she stood up and almost knocked her stool over. Erza looked up at the solid script wizard's cry, and instantly Lucy noticed that Natsu was the target of a death glare from the redhead. Elfman babbled something about letting a girl get hurt on a job wasn't very manly of Natsu, and Gray started to stand up from his seat, ready to pick a fight. It was around then that the blonde realized his grip on her had loosened, and more to save him from everyone else's wrath than to ease her embarrassment, she quickly freed her legs and slid from the dragonslayer's grasp._

"_I'm fine, everyone!" Lucy laughed, catching herself on Natsu's shoulder so she didn't drop immediately on her sprained ankle. "I just tripped and sprained my ankle a little!"_

_The blonde laughed uncomfortably then, because she realized the look that Mirajane was giving her from behind the bar. It was _that_ look. The one she always wore when she was being devious and trying to make matches in her head that didn't actually exist._

_After a while, though, Lucy found herself shuffled—gently—through the guild, mingling with Levy and Gray and Juvia and even Lisanna and Elfman until she finally found herself, much to her dismay, at the bar in front of the final of the trio of white-haired siblings. And that look she wore was still the same devious grin that sent a shiver up the celestial wizard's spine. She couldn't look the blue-eyed pin-up model in the eye when she had that kind of expression._

"_So, Lucy…"_

_Lucy's first thought was _this is the end_._

"…_that job you took with Natsu and Happy was at least ten or fifteen miles away, wasn't it? So if you sprained your ankle in the middle of it, then Natsu had to carry you a long way…"_

"_He didn't have to," the blonde grumbled. "I told him to put me down so many times, but he didn't listen."_

"_Lucy…don't you think that means he—"_

"_Oh, Mira! Look at the time! I haven't eaten in a while and I had this nice meal planned back home, so I'm going to go eat and get my shower. Bye!"_

Yes, Lucy recalled clearly how she'd practically run from the eldest of the takeover wizard siblings. When it was Mira planting odd thoughts in your head, you didn't really have a choice in the matter. It was either run or be forever mortified by believing something that isn't true. Lucy had been the brunt of that at least three or four times now. Every single time the white-haired pin-up model gave the blonde _that_ look, she knew what was coming, but when Mira caught her unaware…she was done for. And she had realized that, too.

Lucy couldn't help but groan again.

"I don't understand why it gets me _every time_," she whined aloud, scrubbing her arm vigorously. "I'm not _that_ desperate for a boyfriend! Why do I always _believe _her?"

The blonde switched arms, frowning.

"I mean, it's not like I _want_ Natsu to notice me like that."

She sighed, her scrubbing slowing slowly. A frightening realization was dawning on her, creeping from the dark recesses of her mind where it had to have been hidden for longer than she could have dreamed possible. At first, the blonde celestial wizard denied it, shaking her head decisively. But the more the thought nagged at her mind, the warmer she felt all over, and finally she dropped her pouf into the water and drew her knees up to her chest and she rested her forehead there. Lucy's wet hands covered her burning cheeks and she took a deep breath.

"This isn't happening," she whispered to herself, but even then she couldn't deny it.

It wasn't that she was gullible—it was that she _wanted_ it to be true.

She _wanted_ Natsu to notice her.

She _wanted_ him to like her.

_She liked him_.

Just the thought of it made her face burn, and she was at a loss. Lucy didn't know what she was going to do or how she was going to face him now that she'd realized her feelings. She could try to be normal, but he would be able to tell that something was off. Where his close friends were concerned, he was very perceptive.

And then _Mirajane_. What would that demon do when she found out that she'd been almost right for so long? Lucy would be the target of perpetual teasing and taunting, and she'd have to live with giving the takeover mage a reason for the aura that screeched _I told you so_.

Lucy couldn't stay in her bath any longer. She'd somehow finished all her hygienic necessities, and whereas prior to her bath she would have loved to soak and think and just come up with plots for her latest novel…now she would just be tormented with her new train of thought. Maybe getting up and about would distract her for a while. Maybe she'd forget this epiphany of hers, so that there wouldn't be any awkwardness between her and her favorite dragonslayer and there wouldn't be anything to tear their team apart.

_As if_.

Even when Lucy had escaped her bathroom, fully clothed and hair hanging damply around her face, she couldn't concentrate when she sat down to write, and didn't dare cook because she knew she'd burn something.

_Almost like him_.

"Stop it, Lucy!" she scolded herself in a small voice. She took a few steadying breaths, then tied her still damp hair back in a ponytail and grabbed her keys. She'd have to face at least a part of this head-on—the possibility of seeing him. If she went back to Fairy Tail and talked with Levy for a while, she should be able to calm down, but if he was still there, she'd have to do her best to play it cool. She'd have to face him like she always did—with a smile and wave.

Yes, that was what she was going to do. So the celestial wizard rolled her shoulders and headed out, stepping onto her normal ledge along the canal without a second thought. And then she began to walk back towards her family, her ankle a dull throbbing sensation from her continued use.

"Lucy! Be careful!"

The familiar voices startled her, even though she should have been expecting them, and she turned too quickly—on her injured ankle. The pain came back like lightning, running up her leg with a sharp, tingling, stinging sensation.

"Lucy!" the boatman called out in shock as she started to stumble in the wrong direction. She grit her teeth and prepared to hit the water for the first time since she'd taken up the habit of walking on the edge of the canal.

"Hey!" a large, callused hand caught her wrist and pulled her back with a quick, effortless yank. This time she stumbled into her rescuer and knocked him over. The two tumbled to the ground, which Lucy had to acknowledge was a much better fate than tumbling into the canal, but she was completely embarrassed that she'd had to be rescued by someone.

"I'm so sorry, I wasn't paying attention!" she said quickly, pushing herself off of the person who'd pulled her back. She started to push her hair out of her eyes as she spoke. "I really didn't mean to fall on you—"

"Calm down, Lucy, it's just me."

_Wait_. That _voice_.

The blonde looked at her hands, almost dreading to find the result she expected, and found bare chest beneath them, the familiar gold-trimmed vest falling open around the pink-haired dragonslayer's torso. He looked up at her in amusement as hitched that childlike grin onto his face, sat up, and started laughing.

"It was your ankle, wasn't it?" he asked, as if she wasn't still practically sitting in his lap in the middle of the sidewalk. The trouble was that she didn't think she could stand on her own this time after twisting her ankle again.

So, with a sigh, Lucy answered, "Yeah, it was."

"Why were you walking that close to the water when you just sprained it today? Weirdo!" Natsu acted as if staying away from the canal was the most obvious thing in the world—which, in hind sight, would have been a really smart thing for her to do. She'd avoided the ledge on the way home from Fairy Tail for that very reason, so why hadn't it occurred to her on her way here?

Oh, that's right. She'd been too preoccupied with the dork sitting in front of her to think about _anything_ else.

"You're right…" she mumbled resignedly. "I just wasn't thinking."

"Wait—don't get upset!" Natsu panicked a little at her tone. "It happens to everyone! Just be more careful when you're hurt, okay?"

He ruffled her hair, almost like she was a child, and though she was mildly offended she really didn't care. She did open her mouth to protest, though, but it went completely unheard—in fact, she wasn't sure she had even said what she'd intended to—when Happy dropped down between the two.

"You _liiiiiiiiike_ him!" the blue exceed trilled, then flew away with a gleeful giggle in the direction of the guild.

"Get back here, you damn cat!" Lucy shouted after, trying to get up and then crumpling back to the ground, cheeks ablaze.

"Happy! Where do you think you're going?!" Natsu had roared almost simultaneously, cheeks tinted faintly pink. He sighed when his other partner was out of sight. "Never mind, then," he mumbled, turning to Lucy as he stood up and holding out his hand. "C'mon, I'll help you back to the guild."

"Thanks," the celestial wizard managed, reaching up for the offered hand. Her face was still burning red, but she was doing her best to hide it and she didn't think Natsu would ask anything about it. He didn't' usually ask questions like that.

"No problem!" he responded cheerfully, pulling her arm over his shoulder and sliding his own arm around her waist for support.

She might not tell anyone yet, even Levy…but being so close to him felt right.

And for the first time, she was almost _glad_ she'd sprained her ankle.

* * *

**Here you go!**

**I kind of wanted to leave it a little open-ended since I don't usually do that. I don't know how it turned out, but…I hope it's okay! I'm finishing this at 1:05 AM two days after I started it at 3 AM, so if there are any iffy parts, blame it on the sleep deprivation! (Or on my lack of writing prowess, whatever you choose!)**

**Anyway, thank you so much for reading!**


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